Sectarian design

Performance by Tadashi Suzuki at the Chekhov Festival

Suzuki brought his “Dionysus” to Russia more than once; this version of Euripides’ “Bacchae” was seen both in Moscow and St. Petersburg. But at the current Chekhov Festival, the Japanese theater guru presented the old performance in a new frame - before “Dionysus” the audience is offered an entire concert of Buddhist ritual music. All together it is called “Coming and going - the revival of traditions.” Today is the last time they play at the Mossovet Theater.

Six reader-singers on a high platform near the backdrop, almost without moving, hum the prayer text. In the center of the stage there is a rich selection of percussion and noise instruments - from a wooden gong and a metal gong to bells and a great variety of rattles. Bass drum, of course; something like a xylophone. And a lonely woman (Midori Takada - she is also the author of the composition), smoothly, predatorily and solemnly moving among the instruments.

An intricate rhythm arises from the gossiping bustle of rattles, the hellish torment of sliding along the skin of the drum, deliberately scratching its nails, rare metallic sounds flying with the inevitability of a sniper bullet. There is more air and silence in this music than sounds and colors, so every sound is perceived as a jewel. Suzuki's participation in this production is minimal - only a few times between the main character and the readers, gloomy individuals in wheelchairs pass from the left to the right wings. First, the men, after the woman, and towards the end, the men will push empty strollers in front of them - at the same pace, concentrated and detached. Suzuki, apparently, generally considers this means of transportation very expressive: it is enough to recall that in “King Lear,” which he staged at the Moscow Art Theater several years ago, Lear also traveled in such a chair. Buddhist idea of ​​limitation? May be. But in this concert section, it actually almost evaporates, “disabled people” become an element of the ornament.

But Dionysus is still good. Suzuki cut this entire ancient Greek story about how Bacchus punished King Pentheus, who disrespected him, by forcing his mother, in a state of confusion, to participate in the murder of her son, by almost three times, eliminating all details and details. Here is Pentheus: the most perfect samurai, as expected, with a sword and the gait of a warrior. Here is his mother Agave, wrapped in miles of white and red fabric. The angry god is not on stage; his lines are given to a choir of six priests - the faces of all six are painted white, as befits Japanese ghosts. All the plastic is Japanese, during the dialogue with Dionysus Pentheus finds himself in a ring of priests circling around him (whoever has ever watched samurai action films has probably seen such a scene), and it seems that now one of them will be the first to rush into a fight. But there is no fight; there is a dialogue in which Pentheus believes the evil god, which means he loses; and after loss comes death. Pentheus is hacked to death.

A short narrative by Euripides (it was full of details, who belonged to whom and how it all happened), but it was like an exhibition of engravings, a change of pictures on the stage. In the program, Suzuki announces that the story of bacchantes falling into ecstasy and capable of tearing even their closest relatives to shreds seems to him to be the story of a totalitarian sect. Perhaps this meaning is read in Japan, but in Russia the performance looks like an impeccable work of decorative art.

Anna GORDEEVA